


Hitching To A Star

by phoenixreal



Series: Superbleachverse [1]
Category: Bleach, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Dean Whump, Demons, Evil Aizen, F/M, Good Yamamoto, Ichigo Whump, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Nixie - Freeform, On Hiatus, Oni, Rough Sex, Sam Whump, Sexual Content, Slavery, Supernatural/Bleach Crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:23:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1453633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixreal/pseuds/phoenixreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grimmjow picks up a hitchhiker and finds a link to a past he had hoped to leave behind.  When a couple Hunters show up looking for his hitchhiker, he has to come face to face with things he didn't want to deal with anymore.  There's a secret war brewing, and the only way to survive may be to ally with those previously considered enemies.  A story of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and a long the way, true friendships and bonds are formed.</p><p>Note: You do not have to be familiar with Supernatural or Bleach to read.  If you know Supernatural, you will recognize things, and if you know Bleach, you'll recognize the characters, however, even someone that is unfamiliar with both would be able to follow the story.  See Note about the SuperBleachverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From Japan...Without Love

**Author's Note:**

> SuperBleachverse
> 
> The SuperBleachverse is my own creation. If you wish to set a story in this universe, please feel free, but I do ask to have credit given for it. This is set in season nine of Supernatural before Dean gets the Mark of Cain but after Castiel gets grace again. The Bleach characters are supernatural creatures in the world. The setting is in America. Japanese names are explained because of Aizen's influence. (More Notes coming soon).

It really was unexpected. It was pouring rain, that night. Thunder resounded in the ears of those that fought for fitful sleep as lightning streaked across the day. And it just simply was not like him to pick up hitch hikers. Not at all. And it really surprised him that he even was willing to pick up a male hitchhiker even more. Everyone’s seen the movies, about picking up some psycho lunatic and being murdered in the car. Not that he was really afraid of that, after all, he was the monster in the scary tales more than some kid on the side of the road. But there was just something about the way his shoulders slumped in utter defeat. The kid wasn’t even looking for a ride, just stumbling along the side of the road. His heard clenched despite his hard exterior. There was something oddly familiar about the way he walked and he was caught by it. Still, picking up hitchhikers was dangerous, even for the monster in this car. There were monsters far scarier than him, after all. But despite that, he found himself pulling over in front of him, slightly blocking his path so there would be no mistake as to why he stopped.

                The kid stopped slowly, seeing a car in front of him. He looked up and his eyes were shadowed. Under the edge of the soaked hoodie he wore, shocks of orange hair stuck out at wayward angles. His face was shadowed, though and the driver of the car couldn’t see more.

                “Hey, you need a ride?” he asked the hitchhiker. Well, more like pedestrian, since he wasn’t really looking for a ride.

                The kid seemed to think about it and glancing up at the cloudy sky, then behind him at the long, empty road, and he nodded slowly to the driver of the SUV that had pulled over. If he noticed the man’s garishly blue hair, he didn’t comment, only slunk into the leather seat with a wet flop and clicked his seatbelt mechanically. He stared ahead. The driver noted the shaking of his hands during the entire process, however.

                “Where you headed to, anyway? Name’s Grimmjow,” he said smiling at the dripping red head beside him.

                There was a derisive snort and he spoke in a low tone that matched the defeated slump of his shoulders. There was a strange, almost tinny sound to his voice. Grimmjow couldn’t place where he’d heard something like that before. “Anywhere but here. Ichigo.”

                Grimmjow nodded and resumed the road. He didn’t notice anything strange, definitely not the car that pulled out a few miles down the road behind him. His mind did zero in on the kid’s name. It was Japanese. That alone sent a shiver down his back. Running into someone with a Japanese name in the middle of the United States, quite literally, the middle of nowhere in north eastern Missouri, was unlikely. Granted, just because he had a Japanese name didn’t mean the kid was Japanese, and he hadn’t caught the barest hint of an accent when he spoke. He couldn’t be sure, though, because now the kid was quiet, and didn’t say anything.

                “So, I’m headed to my home, and you looked like a drowned rat, can I drop you somewhere?” he continued finally breaking the silence, or at least he hoped to break the silence.

                There was a long silence anyway. “I don’t have anywhere to go.” Grimmjow confirmed there was no accent to his voice. Whether he was actually Japanese or not still remained to be seen. He didn’t seem inclined to lift his head.

                Grimmjow thought about the statement. It sounded so empty. He sighed. Well, he’d just dump him somewhere, maybe at the bus station. But then he thought better of it. It was almost two am. And the kid didn’t look like he could handle himself too terribly well in a fight, but it was hard to tell under the black hoodie he was wearing. He could have been a cage fighter for all Grimmjow knew.   He knew better than anyone that appearances were deceiving.

                “Well, yer in luck, I got an extra bedroom, if ya promise yer not a thief and out to rob me blind,” Grimmjow said with a smirk, trying desperately to lighten the mood over the kid’s head.

                There was a snort beside him again and a deep sigh. “Yeah, hard to steal stuff if you don’t have anywhere to go with it.”   He sounded exhausted. Again, that strange high pitched lilt to his voice.

                So they drove in silence for nearly an hour and a half. Grimmjow had been collecting parts in Kansas City, as he lived a bit out of the way on a large piece of land outside a moderately sized town named Maryville. The trip had been good; the back of his SUV was full of various car parts for repairing the three classic cars he had on his land that he was putting back together. One thing he enjoyed since moving to the US was working on old style American muscle cars. He glanced over to the wet, silent lump beside him and back to the long road. So, the kid didn’t want to talk. He certainly wasn’t going to make him, he thought. Finally, they pulled in to his large garage where he worked on his cars and shut off the engine. In the three bays across from where he parked his SUV were his three babies. A 72 mark 2 Mustang, a 69 Firebird, and an almost unrecognizable 82 Camaro.

He smiled and got out, motioning for the kid to follow him.

                “Hey, come on, you’re drenched. I’ve got a few clothes you can wear but you’ll have to cinch the drawstring up good. Looks like you’re smaller than me.”

                He looked over at the taller man, and hiding his face more, got out and followed. He led him up the steps into the house and showed him to the bathroom. Once he stood, Grimmjow could tell he was maybe around five foot nine or so, not too tall, but certainly not a small kid. Of course, that meant he could still be a teenager, also. He led him to the downstairs half bath that had a small shower in it.

                “Here ya go, take a shower, and I’ll go rummage and find some clothes for ya, ‘kay?” the teal haired man said with a smile.

                He got a nodding head from the back as he heard him start to undo the zipper from the hoodie. He shrugged and went diving through his clothes, coming up with a wife beater that had shrunk and a pair of running shorts with a drawstring. That would have to do, because anything else would swallow him. He wasn’t really thinking when he opened the door and dropped the clothes he was holding. The kid turned and looked at him with a frightened look.

                He was in his boxers now, and had been looking intently at the mirror at what was probably a broken nose and purple-black left eye, an eye that was definitely not normal. The right eye was dark brown, the left had black sclera and the iris was bright gold. His left side was stark purple, and there were bright red bruises around his wrists and deep lacerations along with them. Above the shorts, Grimmjow could see thick purple bruises on his hips and lower back. And to make it worse, there were more faded bruises around them. There was a pair of handprint shaped bruises around his throat, and all along his shoulders there were more bruises that could have come from fingers. There were so many shades, from brown and green to the glaring purple and red.

                He stood stock still and stared at the stranger that had picked him up. He wasn’t sure what to do. Before he could move, Grimmjow had moved into the room and pulled his face around to look at the kid’s face closer. And he was kid. He couldn’t be more than fifteen years old now that he was looking at him without a hoodie shading his face. His hair was matted and wet, but he could tell it was vivid orange colored all over, right down to the roots.

                “What the hell, kid?” Grimmjow asked.

                He stammered in a very soft voice, the tinny sound gone that he’d heard in the car. “I…got in a fight…”

                The teal haired man cocked an eyebrow and spun him around, pushing him down onto the counter with one hand, and pulled the back of his boxers away. He was trying to get up, his chest pressed against sink painfully, but soon the band snapped and he yelped in surprise as he was let up. He wanted to run but he couldn’t get past the hulking man. He just crossed his arms over his chest and fell to his knees and looked at the floor, shaking, one hand curled around the deep purple bruise on his side.

                He expected to be hit, to have his ear cuffed, to be yelled at, but instead the man knelt beside him and pulled up his face to look him in the eyes.

                “Who did this?” he asked tightly, and there was a dangerous glint to his eyes.

                “I-I…” he stammered and couldn’t get the words out, his throat working convulsively.

                “Don’t lie to me. You’re beaten black and blue, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that this is a regular occurrence, and unless you are a real masochist, which I doubt since you were running away from something, you’ve been raped pretty damn brutally and pretty goddamned recently. Now tell me what the fuck is going on,” he barely spoke above a whisper but the tone in his voice was commanding and Ichigo broke, finally broke, because until that moment, he had held control. He let out a long choking sob and was soon pulled into the larger man’s heavy grasp, and found himself releasing it all at once.

They sat there for a long time, eons it seemed, but finally, Grimmjow pulled him to his feet, and steered him into the shower’s warm spray. He didn’t resist as he helped him out of the last of his clothes and began to help him wash away whoever had done this to him. He continued to sob into the water, and Grimmjow stoically held him up, letting the water wash it away. It took a while; Grimmjow didn’t think he’d been bathed in a month by the look of him. Eventually, he wrapped him in a towel, drying his hair and putting him in a bathrobe he’d never worn once. He took him into the spare room and sat him on the bed, and he looked at him with a haunted look, the different colored eyes seeming to jolt Grimmjow to his soul. Then he just laid down on top of the covers and fell asleep without another word.

He picked up the hem of robe to see the extent of the damage on the kid, looking now for anything more than bruising. Along the top of his thighs and both buttocks were lines of varying degree of age, some silvery, others pink and more recent. He moved him so he lay on his back and opened the front to look down his stomach. Again, silvery old scars, and some pinker new ones in stripes across his belly and inner thighs. There were a couple thick scars that might have been made by a knife on his pelvis above his pubic hair, which was as orange as the hair on his head, and on his left hip where the crease between his hip and leg were, was what Grimmjow knew too well as a brand of the letter A in a fancy gothic script about three inches tall and two inches wide. It wasn’t new. In fact, if that mark wasn’t more than ten years old, Grimmjow’s hair was pink. That also meant there was no way this kid was a teenager, and more than likely, he wasn’t entirely human. The A glared at him.

“Fuck,” he whispered, he’d thought it was possible by the marks on him, but to have it confirmed was still hard to take.

He rolled the kid over and tossed a blanket over him and rubbed his temples. This was getting bad. This was getting worse than bad. This was getting horrible. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and jaw where it had grown over the elaborate jawbone tattoo on the right side of his face and got up. He looked back and sighed, leaving the kid there sleeping and unconsciously putting his hand on his lower back where an equally gothic number six was tattooed.

He sighed and went into the neat kitchen. He picked up a burner phone out of the drawer where seven others sat and dialed a familiar number. “Nel? It’s Grim. I need yer help again, sweetheart.”

There was no answer, only a soft click as the line was cut and Grimmjow went and unlocked the door, then returned to the bedroom to sit beside the kid who slept fitfully. He didn’t blame him. He looked like he was in a lot of pain. He looked up as a tall, buxom woman entered with long sea green hair. Grimmjow smiled. She smelled of rain, like always. She looked down at the boy and Grimmjow nodded. She sighed and turned and walked out. Grimmjow got up and followed her.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

“Dunno, felt compelled to pick up this kid walking on the side of the road. Pick him up and he’s marked with the A on his hipbone,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Man, Grimmy, really?” she said with a sigh. “You’ve been in hiding for years, and now you’re going to get sucked back into the fight.”

He nodded. “I know, but what could I do? You know as well as I do what the ones like him are put through. And he doesn’t let them go easily. And the mark, it’s old. More than ten years, if I’m not wrong…”

Nel sighed and shook her head. “We’re gonna need help this time, Grimmy, he’s stronger now, and we can’t keep one of the ones he’s branded away from him for long. He’ll track him down.”

“But Nel, how’d he get out?” Grimmjow said, looking up at her from his position on the couch.

There was a knock at the door just then and both of them froze. It was almost four in the morning. Grimmjow got up slowly and went to the door. He opened it and found two men in suits standing there, one tall with longish brown hair and the other a bit shorter with short darker hair.

“Sorry to disturb you, but I’m Agent Rhodes and this is Agent Osborn,” the shorter of the two said with a nod. “But we were wondering if you had seen a young man in the area wearing a black hoodie that seemed to be injured?” They both held up official looking FBI badges. Grimmjow could tell they were fake. Hunters.

Grimmjow sighed. “Drop the act. I know hunters when I see ‘em, Randy and Ozzy.”

The two men looked between each other and back at the blue haired man, and slowly put away the fake badges. “Well, then, I take it you’ve encountered Hunters before.”

Grimmjow shook his head. “Only when they’ve been trying to take off my fuckin’ head. Now, my question is, are you gonna try that shit, because I have not got time to deal you people with one of Aizen’s fuckin’ toys in my spare room.”

Both men exchanged a glance with each other. “Aizen?” the taller one echoed.

Nel stepped up behind Grimmjow and looked between them. “Winchesters,” she said with a frown. “I know you two. You busted the nest I was in a few years ago. I looked a lot different then,” she said and there was a flash and instead of a full grown woman, she looked like a four year old child. Another flash ensued and she transferred back to her full grown stage.

“What the hell, man?” the dark haired one said, eyes wide.

Nel rolled her eyes. “You’re telling me you don’t know a Nixie when you see one? Or should I go find some water and show you how I turn into a fish. No thanks, I prefer this form,” she said, turning and returning into the house.

Grimmjow sighed and motioned the two hunters in, going and grabbing three beers out of the fridge and returned to sit down. “Sit down, if you’re here, you might as well hear the whole story before you try and take my fuckin’ head off.”

“What are you?” asked the tall one as he carefully took the beer.

“You know, I know your last name, but first names would be nice, since I’m not sure you won’t try and kill us,” he said, glancing between them as the shorter one took the beer.

“Fair enough,” the darker haired one said, “My name’s Dean, this is my brother Sam. Now, you two are?”

“Name’s Grimmjow Jagerjaquez, and this is Nelliel Tu Oderschvank. She already told you, she’s a Nixie, I’m an Ailuranthrope, but I was born this way so I have control over my shape,” he said, drinking his beer with a shrug.

“A what?” Sam asked with a frown.

“You call yourselves Hunters,” Nel said with an eye roll.

Grimmjow shrugged. “My kind doesn’t get noticed, Nel, you know that. Also called werecats. Like werewolves, only we don’t make others of our kind by biting or scratching them on purpose. Happens on accident now and then, but we are a breed of naturally born shapeshifters. We don’t prey on humans, and over the years, we’ve trained the need for fresh meat out of our lines. I’m a member of a line of panther aliuranthropes, last actually, and there won’t be any more of my kind if I can help it. World today, we just need to die out,” he said, drawing deep from the beer in his hand.

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. It wouldn’t have been the first time they’d come across “good” monsters in their work, and considering neither of them had ever heard of these werecats, it seemed he was telling the truth. Either that, or they were really good at hiding their deeds.

Nel sighed. “So, you’re here for the boy, then?”

The Hunters looked between each other. “Well, we got a report of a vampire nest and when we got there they were already dead. We asked around, and they said they saw a kid with orange hair in a black hoodie walking down the road. We were behind you when you picked him up.”

“You thought he was a vampire?” asked Grimmjow with a smirk.

Dean shrugged. “What else would he be? You didn’t see the nest.”

“Human, as far as we can tell,” Nel said with a sigh, glancing at Grimmjow nervously, “And he’s in trouble because he’s been branded by Aizen, and he never lets his property go alive.”

“Aizen? Who’s this?” Sam said. “I’ve never heard of this person.”

“Not a person, he’s an Oni, a Japanese Demon, in case you aren’t aware,” Grimmjow said with a sigh. “He’s somehow gained a lot of power recently, and was chased out of Japan. We encountered him when he came through Germany because Nel and I were on the run from a sect of Hunters called the Quincy, which you probably have never heard of either. We were recruited into Aizen’s employ with promises of freedom to no longer hide ourselves from the world, safety in numbers, and all that jazz. He brands those he takes in in one of two ways; he brands those of us he considers his Espada with a number that indicates that we are in the inner circle.” Grimmjow turned and lifted his shirt to show the gothic six on his back. Nel turned and dropped the back of her shirt so show the three between her shoulder blades to them.

“He marks his slaves and property with a gothic letter A. Depending on what their function is, the A is in different places, like the numbers. If they are branded on the leg, they are a runner or mule. If they’re branded on the arm, they’re a guard or strong arm. If they’re branded on the back, they’re a soldier, like me and Nel here were branded with our numbers on our backs. There are many places to be branded, and he makes sure that everyone wearing the brand remains with him until they die. Upon death, the mark disappears,” Grimmjow said as he finished his beer. “It isn’t a normal mark; he’s infused his power into it when he applies it. The slaves are actually branded with a special iron so he doesn’t have to waste his energy. The brands he grants the Espada are given by a touch of his hands and are painless.”

“But you’re here and still have the brand,” Sam said, looking between them.

Nel snorted. “Wasn’t easy. We’ve been on the run for the last twenty years trying to avoid him. We thought coming across the ocean to the United States would mean we’d outrun him. It seems we were wrong because he’s come here too.”

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. They had not dealt with an Oni yet. “So, the kid?”

Grimmjow nodded. “He’s branded. So I’m sure he’ll send someone after him soon as he can locate him.”

“What was he doing in a vampire nest?” Dean asked with a frown. “That intel was from a reliable source.”

“I’m sure he was in one, how do you think I got into a vampire’s nest? I’d been sent there as an emissary to help defend it against the hunters, you it turned out, and when it turned bad for them, I changed form and let you ‘rescue’ me.” Nel said with a shrug. “Aizen likes to loan out his people and his slaves to his allies. No doubt he’s busy making allies with the creatures in the dark nearby to try and take control of the area. He wants to be the one in charge. So he’ll make promises, like he did to us, of safety and building a perfect society where we’re all accepted and live together without fear of people like you.”

“How is it no hunter has ever heard of this guy?” Dean asked, ever suspicious.

Nel shook her head. “He only awakened about thirty years ago. He’d been bound in a demon sleep by an ancient order of monks, but the monastery he was secured in was vandalized, the demon jar broken, and he was released. Rumor was that he wasn’t just a powerful Oni, but the Emperor of the Oni. Hunters chased him from Japan, knowing a little about the Oni, but this one is different, much more powerful than your average Oni.”

Dean and Sam exchanged another look. “Say we believe you, how did this kid get _out_ of a vampire nest unhurt?”

“I wouldn’t say unhurt, but he’s alive,” Grimmjow said with a sigh. “I’m curious myself because he said his name was Ichigo, which is a Japanese name, and he appears to be at least of Japanese descent, except for the glaringly orange hair. It is quite possible he’s among the slaves that Aizen brought out of Japan with him, though that would mean that he might not be human after all. If I remember right, he brought five people out of Japan with him, three of which were slaves and two were his associates. Aizen does use what he considers lesser creatures for his slavery as well. I’m not sure how long he’s been branded, but the skin around the brand healed well, so anywhere from a few months to years as far as we know.”

“Can we see him, then?” Sam said with a sideways glance at his brother. They wanted to confirm he wasn’t possessed. The whole thing was growing more interesting and more curious by the moment.

Grimmjow nodded standing and leading them to the spare room where he was laid out on the bed, still covered by the blanket but sleeping fitfully.

“Holy crap, dude, he looks like shit,” Dean said, frowning at the state the boy was in, eyes moving over the beaten face and the marks on his neck and shoulders.

“Normal for someone in his position,” Grimmjow said softly, moving over to sit beside him and putting a hand on his leg to still his thrashing a bit. “Aizen tortures them into submission first, then when he loans them out, his only warning is that if they die, he has to be reimbursed somehow. Sometimes this means he gains loyalty when something decides to kill one of his slaves and the only thing he’ll accept is that loyalty in payment. After all, there aren’t a lack of humans he can torture and turn into slaves.”

“Where’s the brand?” asked Sam, moving a bit closer because he didn’t see anything on his arms.

A runner or a mule perhaps, surely the kid wasn’t a soldier. He looked far too young and frail for something like that. Yet, something had killed those vampires, at least fifteen had been beheaded in the nest they’d found. The odd part was there were no marks of any swords or knives on the bodies. It looked like their heads had been literally ripped from their bodies by some _thing_ rather than a person. More than one of them had been mutilated as well, but as far as they could tell, whatever had killed them hadn’t eaten anything from them. It had been a grisly sight, even for a nest of vampires. So if this kid were some kind of creature, rather than a human, that would explain how he could have pulled apart a vampire nest. However, if he was something that could do that, what could he do to a pair of hunters?

Grimmjow reached for the sheet and pulled it away from him and opened the front of the robe the boy was wearing enough for them to see the letter A seared into the flesh at the juncture of his thigh and pelvis.   Both of them looked surprised at the sight, noting also the bruising scarring along his legs. Grimmjow quickly threw the cover over him as he rolled over in his sleep and whimpered against the bed as he rolled onto the badly bruised side.

“Um, what kind of slave is branded there?” asked Sam finally to the quiet room.

Grimmjow gave them both an “are you seriously asking me that” look and shook his head. “You two don’t look that naïve. The sex slaves, of course.”

 


	2. The Shinigami

“I got it!” the man with the messy blond hair screamed and went tearing through the room. He sent the black cat sleeping on the back of the sofa flying as he stumbled into it. “I got it, Yoruichi! I’m sure of it this time!”

The black cat yawned and stepped off the sofa seat, transforming smoothly into a tall, buxom dark skinned woman with flowing deep purple hair. She followed the blond man into the office where a short, blonde girl ways sprawled on the chaise lounge. The girl looked up and winced.

“Christ on a fuckin’ crutch, woman, get your clothes!” the short woman yelled, covering her eyes with her arm. “I am not interested in your perfect goddamned body, shit, goddamned Egyptian princesses…”

Yoruichi smiled and grabbed a robe off the nearby chair. The blonde, Hiyori, had placed several robes strategically throughout the house they had shared for the last five years. She turned to the blond man who was frantically looking through papers on his desk.

“What did you get?” she asked, finally.

“ _Him_. I found _him._ ”

Yoruichi blinked. “What? The boy? Kisuke, it’s been thirty years, you can’t seriously think you’ve found him. He’s _dead._ We’ve come to terms with that, please, Kisuke, don’t start this. Don’t give them false hope again. It nearly tore them apart last time, they can’t handle it again.”

Kisuke Urahara sighed but kept looking.   “I know, I know. I’m not calling them until I have him in my hands, but it is him, Yoruichi, I know it this time.”

“I don’t understand how,” Hiyori said, getting up and coming over toward him. “In thirty years, you’ve found traces of him four times now, and every time, there’s nothing and we end up nearly dead by Aizen’s fuckin’ lackies.”

“Hiyori, he’s not dead, he can’t be, he’s one of us,” he said, holding up a paper and putting it aside from the mess on the desk.

“He’s not, Kisuke, we know the girls aren’t immortal like their father. He’s half human, Kisuke. He’s not a full sennin like you and Isshin,” Yoruichi said with a sigh. How many times had they been through this? The number was incalculable. Kisuke was obsessed, quite simply.

Kisuke shook his head. “No, you don’t understand, the signal was clear as a bell. Stronger than any signal I’ve gotten off Isshin. He’s a sennin; he has to be, there’s no other explanation…unless he’s something else....”

Hiyori and Yoruichi exchanged exasperated glances. Well, she supposed as long as Kisuke didn’t get Isshin and the girls involved, it didn’t hurt to check out this lead. “What changed, then?”

Kisuke pulled out a device from the drawer with a smile. “It has to be that he’s left the protective wards. That’s the only thing I can come up with. The trace is in Missouri, now, Hiyori, can you?”

Hiyori rolled her eyes. “The only reason you like me is because I’m a pureblood witch and can transport your lazy ass. Gimme the damn coordinates,” she said, sighing and muttering a spell over the piece of paper in Kisuke’s shaking hand. There was a brilliant flash and all three felt themselves pulled through space. They blinked and found themselves staring at an empty road and the rising sun.

Kisuke turned around and saw a house with a black Impala in the drive, and a huge garage off to the side. The place was the middle of nowhere. He ran to the door and pounded on it impatiently. Yoruichi smiled, noting that she was still in a robe. She wanted to ask Hiyori to conjure her some clothes, but the witch looked exhausted after transporting them across the bloody country. She saw the desperation in Kisuke and she hoped this wasn’t another empty lead. She wasn’t sure how long the sennin could take this. He already blamed himself for the kid’s disappearance.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Grimmjow had just sat down on the couch with another beer when there was a frantic pounding at the door. He looked up and over at the two hunters who shook their heads. It wasn’t them that had called someone to this place. Nel stood in the doorway to the bedroom the boy was in and looked at Grimmjow with worried eyes.

“I’ll get it, seems my fuckin’ place is grand central damned station today,” he muttered getting up and yanking the door open and blinking at a group of three people standing there.

The man at the door was blonde haired with a Japanese style Kusodo in green with a white and green striped bucket hat on his head. He had a pained expression on his face. Behind him stood a really beautiful dark skinned woman with long purple hair…in a bathrobe. He arched a brow at that, and saw a short girl in a tracksuit and blond pigtails behind them. There wasn’t another car.

“Who the fuck are you bunch and how the hell did you get here?”

“Please, please, is he here? Tell me he’s here!” Kisuke said with a desperate look on his face.

“Who?” Grimmjow asked, wondering if this was someone from Aizen, but he didn’t recognize them at all. Then again, it had been twenty years.

“Ichigo, my nephew, please, tell me he’s here,” Kisuke said. “I’ve been looking for thirty years, and my tracer went off this morning. Please tell me I’m not wrong…”

Grimmjow could see the pain in the man’s gray eyes even shaded beneath the brim of his hat. There was no denying that this man wasn’t looking for the boy to turn him over to Aizen. So Grimmjow nodded and stepped back. Behind him, Sam and Dean had stood up and watched the interaction. They moved back as Kisuke practically ran through the room toward where he sensed him. He pushed open the door and let out a weak whimper. “Ichigo…” he said loud enough for Yoruichi and Hiyori to glance at each other.

“Holy fuck,” Hiyori said. “He’s fuckin’ alive…holy fuckin’ shit, man.”

Both women went to where Kisuke was standing in the doorway staring at the sleeping form on the bed. He started to go in but felt a hand on his shoulder. “Wait, please, don’t go in yet,” Nel said quietly.

Kisuke nodded and moved into the living room. He sat down mechanically and felt Yoruichi sit beside him and Hiyori stood in the doorway of the bedroom the boy was in. She thought if they looked away, he’d be gone. She didn’t know the boy, in fact, only Kisuke knew the boy, but after spending the last ten years with Kisuke looking for him, she felt like she knew him after all.

Grimmjow handed the Kisuke a beer and he took it and looked up. “How?”

Grimmjow sat down and glanced to the two hunters in the room. “I picked him up tonight after he apparently ripped apart a vampire nest he’d been loaned to.”

“Loaned?” Kisuke said and his brow creased. “No…no…don’t…he didn’t…he branded him…no…”

Yoruichi wrapped an arm around him. “It may not be that bad…” she said softly.

“He’s branded, on the hip,” Grimmjow said and watched as the blond man sobbed, dropping his head into his hands while Yoruichi beside him looked ill.

“No, no, anything…anything but that…” Kisuke said. “Anything but that…please…is he branded anywhere else?” he said, looking up hopefully. He knew that sometimes, Aizen moved them between divisions.

Grimmjow shook his head. “The mark’s old. He hasn’t got another.”

The man stood and looked into the room and then sat back down. “If I’d been better, if I’d found him sooner…thirty years…of that…he was only nine years old when he took him…”

Grimmjow gasped as realization dawned on him. “That’s why I didn’t recognize him. When we joined him in Germany, he had a little boy with him, he was a waiter or servant…but his hair was black and he had an eye patch. Aizen must have dyed it black then and covered the odd eye so no one would find him. What the hell is he? You said he’s been gone thirty years...”

Kisuke sighed and looked up sadly. “I’m Kisuke Urahara. I’m a member of the Shinigami, an organization that was created to oppose Aizen thirty years ago when he was released. Our leader, for want of a better word, Yamamota is an Eastern Dragon of infinite age. He was the guardian of the temple that Aizen was kept confined. When Aizen was released, he too was released to perform his ancient duty to subdue him. However, the world he awoke to was not as…accepting of the old ways and he had to adjust. So he began the Shinigami to aid him.” He pointed to a patch on the shoulder of the green kusodo he was wearing that was a tulip edged in white. “We,” he said, gesturing to the three people in the room, “We comprise the fourteenth group created. I’m a sennin, Yoruichi is a bastet and Hiyori over there is a pureblood witch. We are groups of creatures, I guess, and those with powers, that each specializes in some aspect of our organization. The Tulip represents True Love. My section is responsible for retrieval of family and friends that have disappeared or been captured by either Aizen or others in the world.”

Grimmjow glanced up at the tension cross the two hunters. “Well, my name’s Grimmjow and that’s Nel. I’m a werepanther, she’s a Nixie, both from Germany, as I said, and I used to be the sixth espada. Nel was the third. We’ve been running from Aizen for twenty years, and done a good job until I picked up that orange haired hitchhiker in there. These two came looking after the vampire nest was destroyed, hunters, Sam and Dean Winchester.”

Kisuke stiffened, eyes narrowing as he stared at the two men, and Yoruichi moved to stand and shifted into the small black housecat. Her fur bristled and she stood glaring at them. Hiyori stood up straighter and eyed them, hands already at the pouch on her hip.

“Whoa, wait a minute, yeah, we’re hunters, but we didn’t kill these guys,” Dean said. “Look it seems like this Aizen is bad news. You guys seem to be okay, and we’re not gonna kill ya just for trying to protect a kid. Even if he’s a thirty nine year old kid…” Dean said looking up at the blond Kisuke.

Kisuke nodded. “We’ve got to go, though, Aizen will be after him, and he’s marked, nowhere is safe,” he said morosely. “He’ll send his espada, and they’ll kill everyone in their way. Without the whole of the shinigami forces there is no way to combat them all, and we’re scattered world wild.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. “We might be able to help with that. We have a place, its warded, it might shield you and him from this Aizen,” Sam said with a nod.

Kisuke looked up at them and then jumped up and wrapped both arms around Dean and hugged him viciously. “Oh thank you!”

“Hey man, okay, come on, let’s get out of here. Um, can you go back the way you came or whatever?” Dean said, pushing him away and looking at the witch.

“I’m done, dude. I can’t do that again until I’ve recovered,” Hiyori said with a shrug.

“Okay, Grimmjow, you have a car, how many can you take with you? I can take two, maybe three with us,” Dean said, looking around.

“Mine will hold three so, I’ll go with Nel and two of these folks. You two take the boy and whoever is left. I don’t think it’s a good idea to crowd him too much right now. One of you two know how to dress broken ribs?” Grimmjow said, looking at them both.

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance. “You could say that. Hospitals usually aren’t on our list of places to go,” Dean said, following Grimmjow into the bedroom where Ichigo was starting to awaken with the light streaming in.

“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Grimmjow said, kneeling beside the boy. Dean stood back a little bit.

Ichigo’s mismatched eyes fluttered open and the reaction was extreme and immediate. Grimmjow fell backward as Ichigo struck upward sharply at the underside of the bigger man’s chin. He flipped over in one move and ran toward the closed door, but Dean was between him and the doorway and he couldn’t stop, skidding into the hunter with a whine as his side slammed into Dean. Ichigo crumpled to the floor with a sob, curling up against the radiating pain from the broken ribs.

Dean dropped to his knees, and grabbed the kid’s wrists as he struck upward at him the second he was near enough to be hit.

“Whoa, now, come on, you’re safe, among friends, let’s just calm down…” Dean said, having little trouble holding onto him in his weakened state.

Grimmjow came over rubbing his chin but seemed no worse for the wear. “Damn, kid, in your condition, that’s a helluva hit,” he said, kneeling and stilling Ichigo’s fight against Dean’s hold.

“You remember what happened? I picked you up last night, and this is my friend, Dean, can you calm down?” Grimmjow said, staring into the odd eyes.

Ichigo glanced between them and nodded slowly. It wasn’t like he was in a position to do anything else. In fact, he hurt so much that just moving was nearly reducing him to tears. Grimmjow nodded to Dean and they let go of his hands slowly. Ichigo moaned and dropped to his side onto the floor. He didn’t know what else to do other than what they told him. He’d tried to run and it wasn’t possible, it was never possible, and now he was just tired.

Grimmjow looked over at Dean with a sad look on his face. “Here, let’s get him up to the bed so we can wrap his rips up for the trip,” he said and tried his best to avoid the bruised section. “I’ll go get the clothes I pulled for him last night.”

Dean watched him go and looked at the boy. Was he really almost forty years old? He didn’t look older than somewhere between thirteen and fifteen. He reached down and picked up the first aid kit and rolled him onto his back. He blinked and stared, seeing his eyes good for the first time. That had to be the strangest set of eyes he’d ever seen.   The one that was black and gold was rather creepy looking, to be honest.

“Hey, let’s get those ribs wrapped, okay?” Dean said, really wondering how to approach him, as a kid or an adult. Best to keep it neutral, he guessed.

Ichigo just stared at him unblinking as though waiting for something to happen. Dean had to wonder how many times he’d been patched up after this Aizen bastard loaned him out to someone. Dean’s stomach turned with disgust. He took out the antiseptic and began cleaning his face first. The bone around his strange eye was definitely fractured and swollen purple all the way around. His cheekbone might have been fractured as well, and it was damn close on his jaw being dislocated or not, but it was barely in place. He quickly bandaged the cuts on his face and moved down his neck and examined the bruises there.

“Are you breathing okay?” Dean asked, seeing that the bruising was near his larynx.

There was no answer and he swallowed against his hands. Dean wasn’t going to say anything else though as he pulled him to sit up and pushed the robe off his shoulders. He shivered immediately and his hands started to shake. Dean put a hand on the middle of his back and looked him over. There were some deep claw marks and bite wounds on his shoulder blades and sides, but the worst was the deep reddish purple bruise on his side.

“Come on, up with your arms, I’m wrapping your ribs, it will be tight and hurt a little at first, okay?”

Ichigo lifted his arms and Dean quickly wrapped his ribs tightly. By the time he finished, he knew the kid had to be in pain. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he was biting his lip against it. Dean grimaced and pushed him back down on the bed until Grimmjow got back with the clothes. He laid there panting and staring away from Dean. Dean sat on the end of the bed by his legs and sighed. He’d seen some messed up shit, but this had to be one of the more messed up things he’d seen in a while.

The door opened and Grimmjow came in with a pair of shorts and an A shirt. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy. He nodded to Dean who came over to him at the door.

“Gonna need your help,” Grimmjow said with a sigh. “Might have to hold him while I dress him. You got him out of the robe, that’s a start. We better hurry, that blond fella is getting antsy.”

Grimmjow moved over and helped him sit up again with a wince from the boy again. He looked up at Grimmjow as he moved around him. Grimmjow made the mistake of leaning over to pick up the robe, giving Ichigo a very good view of the gothic six under his shirt, just the bottom, but enough that he knew what it was. Grimmjow winced because as soon as Ichigo gasped, he knew what had happened. He reached behind and put his hand on his back and turned with the other hand raised. Ichigo had already grabbed the sheet he was under and scrambled off the bed to the floor and was trying to get as far away from Grimmjow as he could.

“Don’t…please…” he whimpered as his back met the wall and he realized he had nowhere to go. “Don’t take me back to him…”

Grimmjow kneeled in front of him and lifted his face. “I’m not with Aizen anymore,” he said, feeling the shudder go through him at the mention of the name. “I left him. Twenty years ago, Ichigo, you gotta trust me here, we’re trying to help you get away too,” he said with a tight smile.

Ichigo looked at him with wide eyes wet with tears. He swallowed nervously and looked over Grimmjow’s shoulder at Dean. “Yeah, we’re taking you to our bunker, okay?” Dean said. “It’s a place they can’t get to you.”

Grimmjow reached behind him and took the shirt and slipped it over his head slowly. Ichigo winced at the motion. Grimmjow reached for the sheet he’d wrapped around his waist and he gripped it tightly against him.

“Ichigo, come on, I’ve got some shorts here, you need to put them on so we can get out of here. Look, I know, I saw the brand last night, remember, I helped you shower?” Ichigo closed his eyes. He honestly didn’t remember much from the time he’d been shoved through the door in the warehouse three or four days ago.

He shook his head and let Grimmjow help him to his feet and take the sheet away. He kept his eyes closed even when he heard the other man gasp and mutter under his breath. He defaulted to his expected position, arms crossed over his chest, and let Grimmjow guide him into a pair of shorts. He didn’t open his eyes until he felt the string on the shorts tighten against his waist. He looked up at the taller Grimmjow and then immediately back to the floor.

“Come on, you’re riding with Dean, okay, I’m taking Nel in the car I picked you up in. And there’s someone here for you,” he said and then paused, feeling him tense beside him. “He’s not with Aizen, he’s your uncle,” Grimmjow said, leading him into the open room.

Kisuke, who had been sitting on the edge of the couch jumped up and bit his lip at the sight of his nephew. Yoruichi had already assumed her cat form for the trip so it would be less cramped in the back of Grimmjow’s SUV with Hiyori and the supplies. She hopped down and headed to the door with Nel and Hiyori. Sam was waiting at the door, hands shoved in his jean pockets as they led the boy out.

“Ichigo,” Kisuke breathed, walking toward him.

Ichigo frowned and flinched away from him. Grimmjow shook his head at him and led him out to the Impala. He looked over the car appreciatively and whistled. “Nice ride,” Grimmjow said, turning and smiling at Dean.

Dean nodded with a grin. “Yeah, she’s my Baby.”

Grimmjow watched him sit down in the seat and looked up at Grimmjow who shut the door. “I’ll follow you, take it as fast as you dare, I’ll keep up.” Grimmjow nodded and went to the SUV and climbed in the seat beside Nel.

Kisuke slid in the other side across from Ichigo and saw the boy was pressed as close to the door as he could possibly get and his eyes were darting around quickly. Dean and Sam sat down and Dean turned back and looked at the boy.

“Just relax, we’ll be there soon, and then you can go rest in a room, okay?” Dean said nodding.

Ichigo swallowed and nodded, gripping the handle of the doorway. Kisuke put a pillow on the seat beside him and patted it. Ichigo tentatively took it and leaned against the door, curling up on himself and taking up an impossibly small amount of space. Kisuke decided it best to leave the talking until they were safe.

No more than half an hour later, Ichigo had fallen asleep and Kisuke had thrown a blanket he’d grabbed over him as he clutched the pillow against the Impala’s door. He scooted up toward the front seat.

“How bad is he?” he asked softly.

Dean winced. “It’s bad, I mean, his whole side’s purple. He really wasn’t willing to let us look too close, but he’s black and blue from head to toe, man. I don’t know what they did to him while he was there, but they messed him up. That’s not even including the old scars.”

Kisuke sighed. “Vampires aren’t too kind to their gifts from Aizen.”

“So you know about this guy?” Sam said, turning to look at him.

“Yeah, I’m a sennin, like Ichigo’s father, and we’re immortals, sometimes called old gods of Japan, used to be hermits in the mountains, but these days you can’t do that. When Aizen rose, we were the first he sought out. Every sennin I know of denied him. Most of us were around thousands of years ago and helped capture and bind him. We knew what would happen if he was released. When the great dragon, Yamamoto came to me I agreed to help him do the same thing again. But this world, it has changed much since those days, and Aizen has quickly gathered forces. He must be stopped before he can harm more…” Kisuke said with a deep sigh, hands tightening on the back of the front seat.

“What’s up with the slaves?” Sam asked. “That’s unusual today.”

“He’s an old demon,” Kisuke said. “And that was the way of things when he was strong before. His empire was built on the backs of hundreds of enslaved humans and beings of power. The brands all showed who were his property and their purpose. On the hand was a worker, or builder of some sort, on the back was a solider, on the arm, a guard, on the leg, a runner or messenger. Or like Ichigo, those to be used for his pleasure and the pleasure of his allies and Espada.”

“That’s twisted as fuck,” Dean said with a sigh. “You think he’s been one of those slaves for the last thirty years?”

Kisuke glanced at the sleeping boy that had been so vibrant when he’d known him last. “I’m sure of it. He would have a second brand otherwise. My guess is that Grimmjow knew of him during his time only in Aizen’s personal service. He prefers to train the young ones himself. He would have done this both for his own benefit, but to punish me and his father for refusing him.”

“You’re telling me, this bastard took a nine year old kid and made him his personal sex slave?” Dean said, glancing up into the mirror.

“More than that,” Kisuke said. “Obviously, he doesn’t age like humans do, being half sennin causes that. He would have appeared to be six or seven when he was kidnapped, and would have appeared around ten years of age perhaps by the end of five years there. He appears no more than fourteen or fifteen now as he nears forty years of age. No, he would be greatly sought after for the continuous youth. There are many creatures that prefer the flesh of a youngling to that of a grown man or woman. Aizen will have used that perversity to his own benefit and no doubt loaned him out often, especially if he has inherited his father’s immortality as well. He would recover quickly from injury, and there would be no worry about replacing him if the creatures were too rough with him.”

Dean stared at the long road ahead. “This is so many degrees of wrong. We need to gank this mother, fast.”


	3. In the Absence of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay like serious editing may happen here. I'm still working out ideas on this one.

The dreams came to him as they always did. It was the ones that should comfort him that hurt the most. He dreamed often and long about his father and his always smiling, kind face, and his little sisters with their adoration and love of him. Despite the strangeness of his eye that no one seemed able to explain, everyone accepted him. His mother, most of all. It was so often dreams of her smiling face that made him ache so horribly when he awoke to find himself alone, or worse than alone, in some strange bed, covered in blood and healing wounds that seemed to never kill him no matter how deep they struck. Love…what had that been like? He was beginning to remember in his dreams, but then he’d wake up and realize there was no love to be had for something like him. Even among a world of creatures, he was different.

The pink haired weird squid guy had poked and prodded him so much that he was certain there wasn’t an inch of his body uncut or unpierced. He still couldn’t explain what he was, even after all his “experiments” which the boy would rather refer to as torture. How many times had we watched in horror as he cut open his stomach to examine what lay within while he was awake? He thought the first time had been the year Aizen had captured him and killed his mother. There had not been much left when the skinwalker had been done with her. He remembered screaming and screaming, and this strange little voice inside his head screamed with him. No one heard that voice except him. He had no idea what it was.

No, the dreams were no comfort at all; they were a reminder of what he could never have again. It was such a simple thing, something that everything wanted more than anything, to be loved by another being. Aizen warned him again and again that he was a freak of the supernatural world, and because of that no one would love him, no one would care about him. Thirty years, those words had been drilled into his head. Aizen would tolerate him; no one else would give him that courtesy.

He rolled in his sleep and groaned.

“Mom,” he muttered. “Don’t…don’t…no!” he sat bolt upright and instantly regretted it letting out a low pitched whine as he lay back down.

“Hey,” came a voice beside him and he gasped. Had that been a dream too?

He scrambled back against the wall and stared at the dark haired man sitting next to the bed. No, this was the guy that taped his ribs. Dean, he thought was his name. He wasn’t back with Aizen. He wasn’t in his cell. He stared at him.

“You hungry? You…look a lot better,” Dean commented.

Ichigo reached up and touched the slightly puffy area around his eye and nodded. “It will be gone by tomorrow,” he said softly, reaching down and feeling his ribs. He winced. Still sore, but not broken anymore. At least he could breathe without pain now. He could tell the bruising was starting to fade.

“How…how long was I asleep?” he said, looking around.

Dean shook his head. “Almost a day and a half. We were starting to worry but that uncle of yours said you’d be fine if we left you alone.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Uncle?”

Dean nodded. “You don’t remember? The blonde dude that rode beside you in my car?”

Ichigo nodded. “I remember him; I don’t remember him being my uncle. But I don’t remember much about before.”

“Before?” Dean said, getting up and sitting beside him.

He nodded. “Before Aizen. It was best to forget. It just hurt too much,” he said, picking at his hands.

Dean frowned and picked up his left hand. The nails on it had turned black. “That’s not paint…” he said.

Ichigo looked down and nodded. “It happens when I’m hurt really bad. Sometimes my tongue turns blue…and all my nails turn black. I guess they did a number on me. But…do you know how I got out?”

Dean looked at him. “You don’t remember?”

Ichigo shook his head. “No…”

Dean nodded. “Let’s go to the kitchen, see if we can put together what’s going on.”

The boy nodded and got up, stumbling as he stood.   Dean sighed and reached out to steady him. “Here, let’s go, I’ve got you.”

Ichigo nodded and smiled at him, and Dean realized when he licked his lips his tongue was royal blue. Okay, that was like weird thing one million about this kid. He sighed, entering the room to find everyone in various places. The strange blond jumped up and came toward them, eyes wide and grinning like a madman.

“Oh, Ichigo, I’ve been looking for you for so long!” he said, not moving to touch him yet. “I’m sorry, I should have been there, I wasn’t quick enough…”

“Whoa,” Dean said, holding up a free hand. “Give him some space, dude. He’s still getting his head together. He doesn’t remember you right now, so back up a bit and first let’s figure out what happened at the vampire nest.”

At the words, Ichigo shuddered, his knees almost buckling. Dean held onto him, keeping him upright and guided him to sit down. He closed his eyes and breathed as the memory tried to flood him.

“What’s wrong?” the taller human said, sitting down beside him.

Ichigo bit down on his lip. “Memories. I…I don’t know, I…I do this thing…put them away…if I didn’t…I think I’d go mad. It wanted to come back. You need to know, or you won’t let me stay, right?” he said, looking between the two men with wide eyes.

Dean looked at Sam and shook his head. “No, no, hey, we’re not gonna kick you out because you aren’t ready to talk about it yet.”

Ichigo wasn’t sure he believed them. “I just…trusting humans is difficult. I can’t be around them,” he said, pointing to his eye. “I’ve run away, I have, and every time…bad things happen to me and then to whoever tries to help me. He always gets to them. What if he gets to you?” he said, eye wide at Dean’s green ones.

Dean shook his head. “Don’t worry; no one is getting in here. This bunker is the safest place you can be. Its warded and trapped and we don’t even know everything in here. Used to belong to the Men of Letters.”

“Men of Letters?” Kisuke said, coming at sitting across from them. “That explains it,” he said thoughtfully.

“You know of them?” Sam asked.

“They…are lost…much like the Quincy,” he said with a nod.

“Quincy?” Sam asked. “I haven’t heard of them. “

Kisuke nodded. “A group of hunters out of Germany. Most were related through a common clan and Ichigo’s mother was actually one of them, though we did not know that when his father fell in love with her. It was complicated, but she didn’t know he was a sennin either. Aizen wanted to hurt Isshin, and had her murdered and took Ichigo from us. I was actually not around much perhaps that was part of the problem. We Sennin tend to keep apart from each other. When creatures like us congregate, we put ourselves in danger.”

Dean nodded. “Same reasons hunters don’t tend to congregate together. Only a few of us at a time.”

Sam and Dean sighed and Ichigo looked over at Dean, blinking and Dean swore that his eye was swirling. Dean blinked, completely entranced and unable to look away from him.

“Dean!” came Sam’s voice, snapping him out of some sort of trance. He blinked and found that the boy had moved, and he hadn’t seemed to notice. He was sitting on the opposite side of the room, crouched on the floor with his head buried in his knees. He heard the boy sobbing. Grimm was attempting to get him to explain what had just happened.

Sam looked at his brother. “Are you okay?”

Dean shook his head. “Yeah, fine…what…what happened…?” he said.

Sam looked toward the boy and back to Dean. “He looked at you and you just stopped. He freaked out and ran, but Grimm grabbed him and got him to sit down over there…”

Dean nodded. “It was like being hypnotized or something,” he said standing up and going toward where he was sitting on the floor refusing to look up.

“Hey, Ichigo, come on, don’t do that, look at me,” Dean said, kneeling down in front of him.

“No! This always happens if I’m around humans!” he said, though his voice was muffled.

“Look at me, Ichigo,” Dean said, his tone a bit more commanding.

Ichigo lifted his head but his eyes were shut. Dean grinned. “Eyes open,” he said softly.

To everyone’s surprise, when his eyes opened they were both black and gold and once again Dean felt compelled to stare into them so he shut his own eyes. “Okay, that’s weird, Sammy, what can hypnotize with their eyes? I think it’s time we did some research on what we’re dealing with.”

“Not necessary, boys,” came a familiar voice from nearby.

“Crowley?” Dean said, standing and looking at him. “What do you want?”

The suit-clad demon shrugged. “I thought you might be interested in hearing what your boy is.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a look. “And why would you tell us that?”

Crowley shrugged. “I’m bored. But anyway, he’s half demon. You remember how fun that was, don’t you?”

Dean and Sam gave twin groans. That had been horrible. They looked at the boy who looked completely lost at the moment. Kisuke walked up and stared at Crowley.

“Impossible, his mother was human, a hunter, I was there when he was born. His father is a Sennin,” Kisuke said with a shake of his head.

Crowley smiled. “But…what happens when a human’s possessed by a demon and doesn’t know it…succubus, actually.”

“Those exist?” Dean asked, looking at him, imagining hot demon babes.

“Not like that,” Crowley said. “They’re clawed, fanged, white faced harpies. Can tell by his eye. They all have black and gold eyes,” he said gesturing to the boy’s face, where his one eye had returned to brown while the other remained black and gold.

Crowley walked over and kneeled in front of the boy, tipping his face up by his chin and frowned. “Wait, that’s not quite right, is it?” he said softly and stood up.

Dean looked at him and spread his hands. “Well?”

Crowley shook his head. “Boys, good luck because I’ve never seen anything like it. He is and isn’t a demon, just like he is and isn’t human, and this Sennin or whatever it is.”

With that, he was gone, leaving everyone more perplexed than they had begun. “It’s the same thing as always,” the boy said with a groan. “No one understands what I am, and weird things happen to humans when I’m around!”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. “Okay, first, let’s see what I have on these succubus demons. That may be a good place to start.”

With that, Sam and Dean disappeared, and Grimmjow settled down beside the orange headed boy. Kisuke went after to help with the research, followed by both Hiyori and Yoruichi. The more heads, the better, Sam and Dean figured, and set them all to work.

“Hey kid, don’t look so bummed,” Grimmjow said, patting Ichigo’s hand.

Ichigo sighed. “He said no one would ever help me because of what I am. He said I was good for one thing, and that’s what he made me into.”

“Kid, no one deserves to be forced into what he made you do,” Grimmjow said and tipped his head back. “One of the reasons I wanted out was because of the slaves. He didn’t use them at first. Then he started branding some humans and I found out what he was up to. I didn’t like it. But, getting away was easier said than done.”

Ichigo nodded. “I know what you mean.”

Grimmjow looked at him. “You’re almost completely healed, aren’t you?” he asked thoughtfully.

Ichigo nodded. “Yeah, doesn’t take long. Though it was bad. Would have killed a human, but you expect that from vampires. They like me, they say my blood tastes good, and they can drink and drink and drink and it never runs out…” he said, eyes on the ceiling. “They’re always the worst ones.”

Grimmjow felt his stomach tighten. “So even the great Oni Aizen couldn’t tell what you were?”

Ichigo shook his head. “No. He liked the fact that he didn’t know, I think. He knows everything else. I was one mystery he couldn’t solve.”

Grimmjow nodded. “Did they ever realize there was a succubus demon involved?”

Ichigo shook his head. “First I’ve heard of it. That guy, he was a demon, wasn’t he?”

“Guess so. Seemed to know the two hunters pretty well, so I get the idea they aren’t your average every day hunters,” Grimmjow said, watching them work and talk with the others. It was as though they didn’t care they weren’t humans.

“I’m afraid it will happen again,” Ichigo said softly, looking down at his now normal colored nails.

“What?” Grimmjow asked.

“The humans…they’ll start to fight each other, and argue and get mean to everyone around them, and then… It happens every time I’ve been helped. I say Aizen gets to them, and he does, but by then, they’ve killed each other. It starts with the hypnotic thing like happened to the shorter hunter. Then it goes from there. It doesn’t happen to creatures…just humans,” He said, biting into his lip thoughtfully. “It doesn’t matter if they’re men or women either…”

Grimmjow nodded. “Well, the legends I’ve heard about succubi are they are seductresses. Maybe there’s some power you have that you can’t control yet.”

Ichigo nodded. “I guess.”

It was obvious he wasn’t interested in talking so Grimmjow decided to just sit in companionable silence with him. Sometimes, he knew, that was enough for a person. He’d almost fallen asleep when he heard a shout. He sat up and saw that Ichigo had fallen asleep against him. He hadn’t woken up with the noise.

“Found something,” Sam said, coming in to the table and laying down a book. Everyone else emerged and sat down to hear what the hunter had to say. “There were a lot of theories about the differences of demons. Obviously, we know there are different types; we’ve encountered several, crossroads demons, knights of hell, and the ones that are super juiced. Now, these succubus demons are ones we’ve never come across. This says there is a legend that the last succubus was expelled from hell by Abaddon long ago. No idea if that’s true or not, but she’s a bitch. Anyway, they weren’t like other demons and couldn’t possess a body and control it. They could spend a limited amount of time inhabiting a human but it was not something they did often. They preferred to hypnotize and seduce their human prey rather than control them from within.”

Sam turned the book around and there was a picture of what could only be described as a harpy looking creature with demonic wings, black talons on her hands and feet, scaly nasty looking skin, and eyes that had the strange black sclera and gold iris like Ichigo. “It says they also release a sort of pheromone that entices those around them to have higher levels of aggression. My guess is somehow they trigger higher levels of testosterone and adrenaline from what this says. They have control over both abilities, and were known to often use their mere presence in a battlefield to send the combatants into a battle frenzy. They would then feed by consuming the heart and liver of one of the victors after the battle. There aren’t details about how often they needed to feed but it could be assumed it wasn’t a once in a lifetime sort of thing.”

“But…if Ichigo’s mother had this succubus basically ‘hitching a ride’ with her while she was pregnant, did the demon go to Ichigo, or did he become half demon?” Dean said, looking over to the sleeping boy.

Sam stood up. “This says they can’t stay in a human body for very long, or even outside of hell. Essentially, when Abaddon exiled them, they were given a death sentence. Chances are this one that was in Ichigo’s mom was the last one, and it was trying to hang on long enough to make it back to hell. Instead, it probably ceased to exist before it could go back, but not before something of it had passed on into the child.”

“So, he’s a cambion?” asked Yoruichi from her position on the edge of the table staring at the book.

“We’ve only met one half demon,” Dean said. “And well…yeah. Everyone from heaven and hell was after him. In the end, he was so powerful that it was a mess…”

Grimmjow looked at the sleeping head of orange hair. He blinked. “Am I seeing this?” he asked quietly.

“What?” Dean said, moving around and looking. “Um, Sam, his hair is turning white…like…right now…”

Sam came around and stared as the white cascaded over his hair and down over his body until every stitch of skin was pure marble white, and his fingernails had changed into pure black talons. He lifted his head and his eyes fluttered revealing both eyes were black and gold now. He hissed at them and snarled but didn’t move.

“What are you wanting with us?” hissed a strange voice from the boy’s mouth.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look and Grimmjow sat where he was without moving. He did not want to be on the receiving end of this thing’s wrath.

“We’re trying to help,” Dean said, crouching down and spreading his hands out.

“Humans hurt us, not help us…no one helps us…” he said, cocking his head to the side and locking his eyes on Dean.

Again, Dean felt the swirling sensation and Sam moved forward to stop him. Dean held up a hand to stop him. “Wait,” he said.

The white faced creature looked into his eyes like that for a long time and then closed his own, and his head dropped back down. Just as quickly, the white color faded, and the color returned to his skin. Dean fell back on his butt and blinked rapidly for a moment.

“What happened, Dean? Are you okay?” Sam asked, kneeling down beside him.

Dean shook his head. “Yeah, fine. It…it was like it was trying to see if I was telling the truth or something. Just shuffled through my recent memories and then backed off.”

“It said us,” Kisuke said. “Could the demon be inside him like that?”

Sam stood up. “Wait…what if…” he said, wandering back looking for something in the stacks of books. After a while he came back with a book open.

“I can’t read all of it, but this talks about demons that weren’t ever human or angel, but were primordial creatures that had always lived in hell. This says that the succubus and incubus were some of them. That may be why they were ousted from hell, because they were another faction that couldn’t be controlled,” Sam said, flipping further through some damaged pages. “It says something about a soul bonded demon. Something about a demon that can unify itself with another soul, but it can’t be a human because they’re corruptible; they’re too easy to make into demons.”

“But a Sennin isn’t a human,” Kisuke said standing. “Especially a true Sennin. If this demon was in Masaki nearly forty years ago when she became pregnant with Ichigo, it may have bonded to his soul to save itself.”

“Meaning it isn’t a possession, that the succubus literally became a part of soul and can never be extracted,” Sam said, standing up and looking around at them.

“So what tore the fuck out of that vampire nest…” Dean said, looking over at the sleeping boy again.

“Wasn’t him, it was the succubus,” Sam finished. “It acted to save him from being hurt. But why now? From what we know, and what he told you, that’s not the first vampire’s nest he’s been sent to…”

Dean sat down and frowned deeply. “Something in that nest had to have changed something in him. Something caused the succubus to fully surface and take control of his body…”

“Looks like we’re going vamp nest diving,” Hiyori said, standing up. “Maybe some sort of magic artifact or something inside the nest triggered it.”

Behind them they heard a slow clap. Dean rolled his eyes and turned around to see Crowley had returned. “What now, Crowley?”

“Well, boys, you got it all figured out, don’t you?” he said with a half smile.

“You could have just told us, bastard,” Dean said.

“Where’s the fun in that? But I will say, no use going to the nest. There’s nothing there, not now. What woke your demon princess there is…oh, wait, did I say too much?” he said, frowning. “Oh well. It isn’t there. That item is in your Oni’s possession. Might want to get your hands on it before he goes using it to awaken other latent demons. He’s not the only one carrying around a little bit of old world demon inside him.”

Dean and Sam exchanged a look and then noticed Crowley was gone.

“I hate it when he does that,” Dean said.


End file.
